Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Taliban’s ban on women delivering humanitarian aid in Afghanistan will disrupt vital and life-saving assistance to millions.
Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and CARE have already decided to suspend their work in the country, AP News reported.
“Deeply concerned that the Taliban's ban on women delivering humanitarian aid in Afghanistan will disrupt vital and life-saving assistance to millions. Women are central to humanitarian operations around the world. This decision could be devastating for the Afghan people,” Blinken said in a tweet.
The relief agencies said that without women in the workforce, they cannot meet demands effectively. The ban was imposed after some NGO employees were not wearing a headscarf correctly, according to AP News.
“We have complied with all cultural norms and we simply can’t work without our dedicated female staff, who are essential for us to access women who are in desperate need of assistance,” Neil Turner, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s chief for Afghanistan, told The Associated Press.
The NGO ban comes just days after the Taliban barred women from attending universities, Politico reported. They have already enacted other strict Islamic laws banning girls from middle and high school, restricting employment, and determining what they can wear and where they go, such as the parks and gyms where they are banned.
In a joint statement on Dec. 21 by the State Department and other foreign ministers, they said that Taliban policies “designed to erase women from public life will have consequences for how our countries engage with the Taliban.”
